Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Barack Obama's aunt wins US plea for asylum.

Barack Obama's aunt has won her appeal to stay in the United States.

Zeituni Onyango, 57, lives in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's father. She moved to America 10 years ago on a valid visa. Two years later she applied for asylum, but was rejected and ordered to leave in 2004. However, she overstayed her visa and remained in the country illegally until she won a new hearing.

Her most recent asylum case was brought on the grounds that she might be in danger if she returned to Kenya because of political and ethnic violence, and because she is related to the US president. She also sought to remain because she is suffering from an autoimmune disorder.

Her lawyer is not saying, which is his right, on what grounds her appeal was granted. But that has not stopped nutcases like Glenn Beck from speculating that perhaps Obama had a hand in this.

The rightwing Fox News commentator Glenn Beck has called for Onyango to be deported.

"Now, social justice dictates that because somehow or another, she's special, whether it's her medical condition, her position in life, her race, or maybe it's just because she happens to be President Obama's aunt that she gets to stay in the US illegally, even after her request for political asylum was rejected in 2004," he said last month.

The fact is that her appeal has been won; meaning that she is no longer in the US illegally, so Beck's entire premise is simply wrong.

Obama has always said that he would not intervene in this case and I note that Beck brings forward no evidence that he has done so. He just sees a chance to take a cheap shot which he, of course, can't resist taking.

The judge clearly found something valid in her claim, and we will never know what that was. But that fact won't stop right wing fury that she has somehow cheated the system.

Click here for full article.

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2 comments:

daveawayfromhome said...

Before Rupert Murdoch was able to create the American branch of his media empire, he had to become a citizen. One wonders how many lines he stood in? I'm suspecting none, and that his citizenship was granted in the fastest way possible using rails well-greased with political favor.

Kel said...

That's a very good point, Dave. He will have been allowed in with obscene haste.